


The Douglas Theory: Secondary Source

by ptera



Series: Prophetic Postulates [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Agnes Nutter's Prophecies, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley's Bodyswap (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Gen, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Missing Scene, Scene: The Bus Ride (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23707861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ptera/pseuds/ptera
Summary: Neil Gaiman said Douglas MacKinnon thinks they switched on the bus.Or, when Aziraphale commits he commits 110%.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Prophetic Postulates [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707445
Kudos: 38





	The Douglas Theory: Secondary Source

**Author's Note:**

> This is a series of vignettes where each story presents opportunities to swap at different points in episode six. They’re self-contained and can be read separately, but they sort of build on each other as Crowley & Aziraphale delay longer and longer.

_When alle is fayed and all is done,  
ye must choofe your faces wisely,  
for soon enouff ye will be playing with fyre.  
_

Crowley got up from the bench and slunk towards the bus. “Let’s get on with it, angel.” 

Aziraphale startled a split second too late at the click of Crowley’s boots on the asphalt and looked over where Crowley had been, his gaze stuck on the far end of the bench until he finally understood its absent silence meant their interlude was over. Aziraphale fluttered his hand up then down so as to miracle away the bottle rather than litter, then bounded up to the bus door, nearly catching Crowley on the heel.

Crowley tipped his gaze back to Aziraphale, yellow eyes visible over the rim of his dark glasses like a crescent moon. Aziraphale’s heart cautiously warmed at this quiet consideration, but he fell back on waving Crowley on ahead, breathing out a grateful, “after you, of course.” Eyes forward again, Crowley got on the bus and Aziraphale followed closely behind, hands now clutched against his belly.

Always mindful, dear Crowley; looking out for him, looking after him. Aziraphale took in these small moments in the aftermath like Schubert after a long day... Oh, that was a painful thought. The bookshop was gone, his one place he truly made his own destroyed, and here he was boarding a bus to take him back to a refuge in ruins. It was a lonely hour to have nowhere to call home, he thought as he looked for a seat - hopeful for one near Crowley.

Then he noticed. He keenly noticed Crowley had taken a double seat.

Crowley chose a double seat and slid over to the window. There was room - a whole empty seat - beside Crowley. Crowley made a space for him, didn’t select the single seat or hold the aisle on the double like a proper demon, but chose a spot where they could sit together.

Aziraphale processed what he was seeing as fast as he could, his heart now an up-tempo intermezzo. There was Crowley, up against the window, eyes somewhere behind the smoky glasses and perhaps not looking at Aziraphale at all. But… but! There was Crowley’s open palm on his thigh - upturned and beseeching in the quietude.

Oh.

 _Oh_. 

Crowely truly meant it when he offered to let Aziraphale stay at his place, and Aziraphale was such an old silly for not taking Crowley at his word after all this time. Here was the action, the proof - Crowley was sitting there, on the bus bench, with an open hand and ready place at his side.

At long last he would answer the clarion call to embrace the future - their future.

Aziraphale swept into the seat beside Crowley and grabbed for his open hand. In that moment Aziraphale was committed to Crowley in every way - ready to hold fast to Crowley against all comers as one. To the uninterested bus driver, Aziraphale was taking the hand of his companion, but on the astral plane, Aziraphale swung so hard at Crowley all the bells of heaven would ring (if they still had bells that cared to ring for such happy tidings of terrific joy).

Aziraphale, having recently possessed a willing witch and even more recently reincorporated into a physical body, committed so hard to Crowley - to the very concept of him - that the analogous force of his ethereal spirit crashed into Crowley like a symphonic crescendo.

Crowley, being an overwrought and exhausted demon who thwarted an apocalypse and briefly stopped time, startled from the radiant crash of angelic spirit. Like met like in a transonic reverb that sent Crowley and Aziraphale echoing around their corporations like yodelers in the Alps.

“Hgk,” said Crowley through Aziraphale’s corporation. He clutched his-their-his? - _Aziraphale’s_ hand tighter, steadying himself. Reorienting himself to an existence two feet of the right of his previous reality.

“Oh!” said Aziraphale, equally startled with hand-over heart, his mannerisms looking comical in Crowley’s body. “My dear fellow, I apologize for taking such liberties!”

“Ngh,” Crowley replied, more accepting of the apology than his current state of being, which was vibrating with the resonance of a quieting gong. “...Angel, what have you done?”

Aziraphale smiled in a way that would have looked deservingly pleased on his old face, but was tarnished with pride on Crowley’s, “Figured out part of Agnes’ prophecy from the look of things!”

“I’m not sure what you just did counts as ‘acting wisely’,” Crowley managed, carefully enunciating each word to relearn their shapes.

“Ah, but her exact words were ‘choosing wisely’, and I do believe you are a very wise choice indeed.” Aziraphale kept them hand-in-hand, gently firm and steadfast; a warm line of familiarity radiating from the left. “Playing with fire, however,” old anxieties stole the bravado from his voice, “that will require further thought and reflection”.

“They can’t throw us on the M25, the boy put it out,” Crowley looked past Aziraphale to the roadway, the intermittent flashes of light passing as if never destroyed by an ancient satanic order’s dread sigil. 

“Could be figurative,” Aziraphale offered.

Crowley chuffed a laugh. “Could easily be literal.” 

“Yes, hell could hardly let one angel stand against the Great Plan.”

“Heaven couldn’t let one demon stand against it either,” Crowley leaned in close, still somewhat disoriented from the swap, “but whatever they have planned, there’s no way they could expect this of us. We've got an upper hand.”

“We’ll stand together,” Aziraphale looked at him, the lovingly stubborn expression wholly the angel’s despite the wrong face. 

“Of course, Angel,” Crowley agreed, “together.”

The bus rolled on, the landscape changing gradually from stone-walled farmlands to brick suburban row houses to the modern cityscape of glass and steel. Through it all they held fast to each other, paying no more mind to the outside world than the driver did to having only two passengers for a multi-hour London detour from his Oxford route.

* * *

"Magnanimous Despair alone  
Could show me so divine a thing  
Where feeble Hope could ne’er have flown,  
But vainly flapp’d its tinsel wing."  
...  
"Unless the giddy heaven fall,  
And earth some new convulsion tear;  
And, us to join, the world should all  
Be cramp’d into a planisphere."  


\-- Andrew Marvell, _[The Definition of Love](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44679/the-definition-of-love)_

**Author's Note:**

> Neil Gaiman's [Tweet](https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1192080635109793793).  
> [Original Tumblr post/inspo](https://theoverlordmisha.tumblr.com/post/188966778973/regarding-the-crowleyaziraphale-swap).


End file.
